Purposes and Organization of This Book

We wrote this book for business managers, to help them decide on investments in systems based on ebXML and the need for ebXML-compliant systems from developers or vendors of their systems in the future. While the book is written for managers, technical specialists who would like an introduction to ebXML and a discussion of the business rationale for its development will certainly find the book of value.

The book has two basic audiences, and we organized the contents with these two groups in mind.

Part I: Executive Overview of ebXML

Part I gives an executive overview of ebXML. Chapter 1 provides a discussion of the business conditions driving development of ebXML and Chapter 2 offers an introduction to ebXML requirements and technology. Chapter 3 gives projected cases of how ebXML will work in realistic business scenarios, as mentioned earlier in this chapter. With this part of the book, readers should be able to describe the reasons for ebXML and discuss the basics of the ebXML approach and technology.

Part II: ebXML Background and Details

Part II is written for managers and business analysts directly responsible for and involved in e-business implementation and offers more background on the requirements, development, and technology of ebXML. Chapters 4 and 5 provide background on XML and the ebXML initiative, describing the developments leading up to, and contributing to the development of ebXML. Chapter 4 also discusses some of the limitations of XML, which is important to understanding several features of ebXML.

Chapter 6 presents ebXML's business requirements that tie the business needs discussed in Chapter 1 to the specifications themselves . Chapter 7 discusses web services specifications related to ebXML, including the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) used to define much of the ebXML message structure. Chapter 8 gives details of the ebXML technical architecture, in business terms to the extent possible. Chapter 9 provides a detailed example of ebXML message exchanges in a realistic business scenario.

Part III: Learning More About ebXML

This section of the book is intended for both of the book's audiences. Any new technical or business initiative will create plenty of acronyms. Thus, Appendix A, "Acronyms," provides an extensive list of the acronyms used in this book and applicable to the discussion of ebXML. For readers who need even more detail about web-based business in general and ebXML in particular, Appendix B, "References," lists the technical documents from ebXML for use by system specialists, as well as books, articles, and more general business information on the applicable technologies for everyone else interested in ebXML.

This Book's Web Site

Because of the dynamic nature of the material, New Riders Publishing and the authors have established a web site at www.ebxmlbook.com, where readers can get updates, links, and supplements to this book.We encourage readers to visit the site for developments on ebXML as they relate to the contents of the book.

What This Book Is Not

Just as we did with the ebXML specifications, we need to point out the limitations of this book.The reader should not consider this book a substitute for the ebXML specifications themselves. Companies that want to develop systems based on ebXML can download the specifications from the ebXML web site (www.ebxml.org), free of charge.

In this book, we summarized many of the technical details, even in Chapter 8, "ebXML Technical Architecture." We also based some of the content on specifications still in draft at the time of writing this book. While the specifications were nearing completion, it's possible that some of the details may have changed between the production of this book and issuance of the final documents.

Finally, it's important to keep in mind that e-business is as fluid as the rest of the business world, particularly in the economic slowdown of 2001. By the time of this printing, web sites or even whole businesses listed in this book may have changed ”or disappeared entirely.When web-based or brick-and-mortar businesses seem to have vanished, it's always wise to employ a search engine to scour the Net for new names or URLs ”or at least for press releases and other such business information that can indicate the company's new name , owner, or address.